News

July 17, 2015

One woman’s story speaks for millions of workers like her

The story of Dawn Hughey of Flint, Michigan, who worked well over 40 hours a week to make someone else rich but got paid nothing for her extra effort, is the story of millions of American workers denied overtime pay, as AFL-CIO Now, explains:

Dawn’s employer, Dollar General, hasn’t paid her a living wage for the hours she has worked because an outdated rule about who is eligible for overtime pay said they didn’t have to. And Dawn’s not alone. An estimated 15 million workers should be getting overtime, but aren’t.

Dawn was a manager at Dollar General for two years, and because they paid her more than $23,660 a year, they could work her like a dog, with 60-70 hour weeks, and never pay her a dime for her time over 40 hours.

There are over 160,000 workers in North Carolina like Dawn who don’t receive fair pay for fair work, but that is about to change thanks to a long-overdue update to overtime rules brought forth by the United States Department of Labor at the behest of President Obama. Their proposed changes would raise the threshold for exemption from overtime to $970 a week or $50,440 a year.

The USDOL will issue a final rule soon after a 60-day comment period – and that’s where you come in.

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The North Carolina State AFL-CIO is the largest association of local unions and union councils in North Carolina, representing over one-hundred and forty-thousand union members, fighting for good jobs, safe workplaces, workers’ rights, consumer protections, and quality public services on behalf of ALL working people.